


covet

by passionfruits



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 17:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11628495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passionfruits/pseuds/passionfruits
Summary: The reminder doesn’t do shit.About matching tattoos and the communication game.





	covet

The reminder doesn’t do shit.

He still lets Joe fuck him seven ways to Sunday. In the dark, Rob’s hand tangles in coarse gold locks, strands and shadows obscuring the spidery ink.

Not so permanent after all.

Rob bites the twin tattoo on his lover’s shoulder. He thinks Joe forgets sometimes, the fact that they took turns. Under swaying amber boat lights, smoke curling from his lips, Rob pressed the needle into the curve of Joe’s muscle. He branded Joe right back, with a thousand lancing pinpricks. Bleeding from every pore.

An exchange of vows more binding than a ring.

Joe hides his beneath a starched polo shirt.

Not strikingly obvious. Not carved in the webbing of a hand he has to stare at every godforsaken second of every endless day. Not shifting with his tendons, burning hot against the ice cold of a perpetual drink. Not raw and exposed to the world, for Rob to smirk and glance at with knowing, voyeuristic pleasure. No; Joe monopolizes that privilege, and every other.

Liar. Coward.

But it’s there, all the same.

The same.

Hearts on their goddamn sleeves, either way.

Rob bites until blood vessels break. Sleeves. Joe’s are never long enough. They could be, but he ties the sweater around his neck every damn day instead, a halfway gesture, a romantic token for Rob's roving eyes only. God, Joe loves flaunting that trophy almost as much as knowing no one else knows it means--anything. He's always been a glutton for power and control, repression and flagrancy. Paradox. As if teasing Rob in public is the same as admitting it to the world.

His sleeves are too short on purpose. Like he wants to be caught. Give the choice to someone else. A twist, a stretch, and the hem rides up, flirting with the truth.

Rob watches. Across the yard, from the bar, through the window, from the cliff. Joe rubs his bicep. Often. Thoughtless, compulsive.

A lurid secret, blistering through the thin fabric. The thin fabrication.

It drives Rob mad with wanting, being that close to freedom. It’s on his hand. In his blood. They could have it, if Joe would just, just, just.

Won’t.

Can’t.

Silence.

He’s the one who chose the lie. His fault, over and over, again and again.

When the imprints fade, tiny ridges in pale flesh, when the weight of the anchor on Joe’s shoulder bears down at some party, when he grips the wheel on Rob's hand that is his alone to steer, when his fingers brush against the back of Rob’s neck, curling around the ghosts of their favorite bruises, when Joe whispers the promises he always breaks, Rob will bite again and baptize the site in whiskey.

Shallow wounds, shallow wounds.

**Author's Note:**

> boy do I love angst but I want HAPPINESS AT THE END OF THAT TUNNEL and I am so upset for these two! let them grow and atone and heal and be happy!


End file.
